“You're perfect. To me you are. You always will be. When you're small you think that about your parents. When you're old, you think that about your kids. You'll see.”

“The greatest strength you can have is to know your own strengths. You've got to figure out what you're good at and make the most of it.”

“I think you should see this as a blessing. A release from a lifetime of mediocrity.”

“To be jealous of money is uninspired ... You can only be jealous of someone who has something that you can never have. More style, for example, or wit. Money is easily earned.”

“How inexplicable and enviable, never to want to be anywhere other than where you already are.”

“But for now, she would lie in her husband's arms, her eyes closed and her body still against his, thinking that if this was all she ever had, it would be enough.”

“You can point to Deal A and say, "That shouldn't have happened," but what does a guy in my position do? Challenge one? I'd get fired. Challenge them all? I'd get banished from the industry. Then what? Nothing has changed.”